The Ministry for the Future

52

Our Sikkim became a state with fully organic agriculture between 2003 and 2016, aided by the scholar-philosopher-feminist-permaculturist Vandana Shiva, an important figure for many of us in India. Of course Sikkim is the least populated Indian state, with less than a million people, and the third smallest in economic terms. But it grows more cardamom than any place but Guatemala, and one of its names is Beyul Demazong, “the hidden valley of rice,” beyuls being sacred hidden valleys in Buddhist lore, including Shambala and Khembalung. Sikkim is precisely this kind of magical place, and its version of organic agriculture, one aspect of permaculture generally, became of interest across India in mid-century, as part of the Renewal and the New India, and the making of a better world. Here again Vandana Shiva was an important leading public intellectual, combining defense of local land rights, indigenous knowledge, feminism, post-caste Hinduism, and other progressive programs characteristic of New India and the Renewal.

Important also has been the example of Kerala, at the opposite end of India, for its crucial innovations in local government. A state blessed by location on the southwest coast of India, with a long history of interactions with Africa and Europe, home to fabled Trivandrum, Kerala has long been governed by a power-sharing agreement between the Left Democratic Front, which was very influenced by the Indian Communist Party, and the old Congress party, which though out of favor at the national level, always kept a fairly substantial level of support in Kerala, as representing the party of independence and Gandhi’s satyagraha, meaning peace force. The LDF has been the dominant party in Kerala since Indian independence a century ago, and one of the main projects for the party has always been devolution to local governance, closing in on the goal of what one might call direct democracy. In Kerala now there are panchayats for every village, then district governments that coordinate these panchayats and oversee disputes and care for any necessary business at the district levels; and above them is the state government in Thiruvananthapuram, looking after such business as involves the whole state together. The focus on local government has been so intense and diligent that there now total 1,200 governmental bodies in Kerala, all dealing with issues in their particular area whatever it might be.

Strangely, perhaps—or perhaps it is not so strange—it is often said of both Sikkim and Kerala that they are exceptionally beautiful places, and both attract more tourists than most Indian states. But in truth almost every Indian state is beautiful, if you take the trouble to visit it and look. It is a very beautiful country. So the answer to the success of these two states cannot be put down entirely to the beauty of their landscapes.

Although treated very poorly for a long time by various invading interests, including the Mughals, the Rajas, the British, globalization, and corrupt national governments from every party, but especially from the Congress party in its waning days of power, and then the Hindu triumphalist BJP party, both now disgraced for their connections to the heat wave, India continues to rise above all and do its best. So in the New India, in the time since the heat wave, there was a complete revamping of priorities, and if at all possible the introduction of India-based solutions to the problems afflicting us. Here Sikkim and Kerala are in their different ways great exemplars of what can be done by good governance and India-first values and practices. Of course the solutions to our ills can’t come entirely from within India’s borders, big though it is compared to many countries, both geographically and in terms of population. No matter how big, all countries now need the whole world to be behaving well. Still, India is big, and big enough to provide human, agricultural, and mineral resources for a great deal of rapid upgradation.

What has been of interest is to see if the advances pioneered in the states could be rapidly scaled to the whole country. Not just Kerala and Sikkim, of course, but also states like Bangalore, the so-called Silicon Valley of India, which has led the way in that regard by founding a great number of engineering colleges. Now Bangalore, the Garden City, third largest in India, is thriving as a global hub for IT, and innovations there in the creation of the so-called Internet of Land and Animals might well help the process of full modernization of the Indian countryside. And then of course there is Bollywood in Mumbai, and the enormous mineral resources all up and down the spine of the country. Even taking coal off the table, as we have, the sheer physical wealth of India is unsurpassed; and in a world powered by solar power, India is indeed blessed. More sunlight energy falls on India than on any other nation on Earth.

So the important thing now is to join up past and future together, and join up also all the diversity of people and landscapes that is India, into a single integrated project. The biggest democracy on Earth has huge problems still, and also huge potential for solutions. We need to learn our agriculture from Sikkim, governance from Kerala, IT from Bangalore, and so on and so forth; each state has its contribution; and we must then put them all together to work for everyone in our country. When we have done that, then we will provide an example for the world that it needs; and also, having solved the contemporary problems of life in a democratic fashion for one-seventh of all humanity, there are that many fewer people for the rest of the world to worry about.